Doctor Who: Planet Of The Dead David Tennant Interview

Q: Has filming the specials been different from filming the regular series?

"I think we get slightly more time to film the specials. I don't know if that's even true — we get four weeks to film an hour-long special whereas we get about two-and-a-half weeks to film a normal 45-minute episode. So we've got a little bit more time to play with but then they tend to be a bit more ambitious.

"Certainly this one was, and you know the fact that we wanted to film in an actual desert and there aren't a lot of them in south Wales.

"So we had to find somewhere in the world that we could get to that had an infrastructure that we could use to film in and that would have us, you know. Some of these deserts exist in some less than friendly regimes."

Q: Tell us about the desert vistas.

"We went to the desert and we got some incredible shots, I mean I think you'll notice it on screen that we went a long way, and that the director and the camera particularly made it count.

"I think it'll look like an alien planet in a way that nothing we've ever done before has ever quite managed, just because it is an extraordinary... it is an extraordinary sight, just miles of sand and the blue skies, the sun beating down, it is like being in another world really, so quite useful for us!"

Q: What is this episode about?

"Well it's about a bus that ends up on an alien planet, it's about an international jewel thief who meets the Doctor and is quite intrigued by him. And it's about two alien races, one of which is just doing what comes naturally and one of which is trying to get home.

"And all of those elements kind of combine into a story that is a bit bonkers, very fast moving, very exciting, and sort of on a scope. Bigger than we've managed before, which is very exciting.

"It's very exciting having done the show for four years and still finding new stories to tell and ways of telling those stories, it's great, and it's what makes it such a great show to work on."